sugar and cream

4:13 PM back in the 'Dirty D' as they all say (though I try to avoid saying it as much as possible) for the weekend.

Rewarding myself with an iced See-Line Woman from Cocoa Cinnamon.  So many coffee and spice words I'm not familiar with.  Burning in the sun.

[at the risk of looking embarrassing taking pictures of it all...]

I see a father and his baby boy, as he explores the surrounding areas, making friends with the girls next to him.  He's very vocal, and I want to hold him.  He's so fatttttt. :)

Every bench is filled like a high school cafeteria, and they all seem to know everyone else. 

Couches and stools decorate the "inside" although there really isn't an "inside."  We'll call it... within the brick structure.

There's a similar faded brick building across the street - it looks like a restaurant.  It looks quaint and potentially romantic in a small town kind of way.

I see a large white dog waiting by one of the benches.  He's very intrigued by each person passing by.

It's mellow.  Right by the street but few cars actually pass by.

Oh, there's Motorco where the food trucks occasionally gather.

I really want a beer.  By a pool.

Got my GRE packets out and working a rate of one question per... hour.

Days like this when I really love Durham.

It's no [enter big city here], but there are no shortage of dessert places to compliment the cafes (and restaurants I guess).

Cupcake Bar popped up sometime while I was on the other side of the world.  Next to Pizzeria Toro, I like the novelty and atmosphere and the visual-pleasing-ness of it more than the actual act of eating their cupcakes (and by eating their cupcakes, I really mean scraping off the frosting to eat just the cake part).

I wouldn't recommend it if you aren't big on frosting like myself.  It's quite the sugar overload, but they offer minis along with their regular-sized cupcakes.  Went for Irish cream and Margarita, the second of which I was a fan of for the little specks of lime in the frosting.

I'm going to insert another plug about how cute their tees are.  Adorbs.

As I understand it, yesterday was National Donut Day, so I'm a day late on this one.

But Monuts.  I don't even like donuts... but Monuts.

They have both yeast-RISEN (because it alarmed Victor and Eric when I just said 'yeast donuts') and cake donuts.

What you're looking at are chipotle lime peanut (yeast) and strawberry mint julep and my brother's cocoa cinnamon (cakes).  I was very pleased by all, especially chipotle lime peanut (just the kind of crazy flavor profile I would be drawn to).  So fluffy, I legitimately wanted to die.  Not too sweet with just a hint of the savoriness of peanuts.

They close at 2pm, so get their early.  And both times they sold out of their NC donut (sweet potato with bourbon glaze... are you salivating?), which made me wildly upset... so get their extra early.

 We obsessed about Parlour before it was cool.  You're looking at the sweaty crowd of a food truck rodeo two summers back.  The white school bus to the right was Parlour before it became a store next to the giant bull in downtown Durham.

Tried pineapple basil and some variation of cinnamon.  But my favorite to date is salted butter caramel (actually, just.. go.  Go get it now.  Unless it's Monday because they are closed on Mondays).

P.S. their sweet potato is excellent for those who don't naturally associate sweet potatoes with dessert (you mean... you've never had sweet potato in cake form?  What?)

 I'm only adding in Amelia Cafe because we ended the day on their patio after nearly encountering death at the quarry (in the form of a ledge, rocks, and a snake) because Kyle so selfishly wanted a decadent chocolate dessert (jaykay about the selfish part), and this was the only place I could think of that might have something involving chocolate mousse and cream.  The desserts are absolutely huge - worth the money if you think you can lick your takeout container clean.  We split the little triple chocolate mousse cake and still couldn't manage to finish it.

Located in Brightleaf as a part of Chamas, they've also got gelato (which I make a habit of sampling every time I step in) and crepes.

Secretly, I pretend like this is my cafe.  Outwardly, I'm still bitter they didn't hire me when I applied for a job freshman year.  All I really wanted was a shirt that had my name on it (and the possibility of free gelato).

So speaking of sugar and cream... yesterday I learned that tiramisu was the dessert of choice for prostitutes in Italia.  Literally meaning "pick me up," it was meant to keep the girls awake and energetic throughout the long night.  Good to know.

(And bananas are nature's energy bar.)

(And cookie monster balloons are $11 at Harris Teeter.  Funny joke.)

(But cookies are currently BOGO.)